Adaz biography of albert king

Home » Jazz Musicians » Albert King. By playing left- handed and holding his guitar upside-down with the strings set for a right-handed player , and by concentrating on tone and intensity more than flash, King fashioned over his long career, a sound that was both distinctive and highly influential. He was a master of the single-string solo and could bend strings to produce a particularly tormented blues sound that set his style apart from his contemporaries.

English: Title: King Albert at Columbia.

Along with B. King no relation, though at times Albert suggested otherwise and Muddy Waters, King helped nurture a white interest in blues when the music needed it most to survive. King was born in Indianola, Mississippi and taught himself how to play on a homemade guitar. Inspired by Blind Lemon Jefferson, King quit singing in a family gospel group and took up the blues.

He worked around Osceola, Arkansas, with a group called the In the Groove Boys before migrating north and ending up in Gary, Indiana, in the early s. For a while, King played drums behind bluesman Jimmy Reed.

He's a super smart man!

In , King convinced Parrot label owner Al Benson to record him as a blues singer and guitarist. Because King received little in the way of financial remuneration for the record, he left Parrot and eventually moved to St. Louis, where he recorded for the Bobbin and the King labels. In he had a minor hit on Bobbin with "I'm a Lonely Man. King didn't become a major blues figure until after he signed with Stax Records in Working with producer-drummer Al Jackson, Jr.

Although the blues were dominant on songs such as"Laundromat Blues" and the classic "Born Under A Bad Sign", the tunes had Memphis soul underpinnings that gave King his crossover appeal. A collection of these singles were compiled onto an LP in , and it proved to be an important recording in modern Blues history.